


Come Home Before Dark

by Arazsya



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Imprisonment, Multi, Public hanging, pseudo-historical
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-07-20 20:04:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16144517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arazsya/pseuds/Arazsya
Summary: A penniless Jonathan Sims is stolen from the road by a handsome stranger with a pistol, on his way to receive a much-needed inheritance. Martin, his sole remaining servant, waits and worries. Elias Bouchard, the executor of Gertrude Robinson's will and Martin's gracious host, has his own ideas about how to use Jon's inheritance, and is willing to do anything to get his hands on it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Minor and background relationships are: Martin/Mike (past), Sasha/Melanie (minor), and Daisy/Basira (implied? canon-typical?). Apologies to people who actually know things about history - maybe consider this an AU from that too. 
> 
> For a story based on the thought "hey, I know an AU Tim would look hot in", this got a bit out of hand, and, while the whole thing is written, I didn't want to upload bits that haven't gone through at least one round of edits, so I'll be updating Sundays! 
> 
> Many thanks to my lovely treater, Mala - who made [this amazing art](http://malaroots.tumblr.com/post/178613175845/for-pilesofnonsense-2018-the-magnus-archives-big) which you should all go and look at it's beautiful - and to Flammenkobold, without whom this would probably still be a line of text on my stickynotes.

There’s something out there, Jon thinks. Movement. Something flitting between the tree trunks, just out of the corner of his eye. Nothing there when he looks directly, nothing that he can see. And there’s nothing strange about that, he tells himself. These are the woods, after all, and a single oak is home to far more life than anyone would expect, or so Martin had said once.

Martin had said a lot of things. _Please don’t leave it too late, Jon. Please don’t go off the road, Jon. Please don’t be out after dark, Jon._ Jon had nodded and agreed, because that’s the fastest way to get Martin to stop _fussing_ , and promptly ignored all of his advice. Because Jonathan Sims knew better, Jonathan Sims had things to do.

Jonathan Sims is thoroughly lost.

The horse seems nervous. He thinks it does, anyway. He’s no expert in equine emotion. Maybe it’s just that he’s nervous himself, and projecting all of that onto an animal that can’t tell him any different. There’s something stiff about its ears, though, and he’s sure they hadn’t been like that when he’d left; far too late, so he’d then taken what he thought might be a short cut to compensate. Now the night is rising, the leaves a cluster of black shapes against a darkening sky, crowded branches blocking out any hope of seeing what must by now be a long-vanished sun.

It had still been bright, when Martin had left, rattling off on the old cart that had been all Jon could afford to hire. The woods had been gentle around him, an early autumn haze of glowing amber and mellow green. Jon should have gone with him. Wouldn’t still be here if he had. But for some reason a cart with two seats had been more expensive even than hiring a second horse, and he hadn’t liked the idea of sitting on his luggage, to say nothing of being in close proximity to Martin, for however many hours the journey would take.

Still, Martin knows this place better than he does, would have been able to navigate it in the dark, while Jon had become lost in the early evening. He’d stand by the decision, of course, if anyone asked - he had needed the time to sort out the sale of his old house, so the debts wouldn’t follow him to his new one, and it had seemed better not to travel with all of his remaining possessions in the dark.

There’s another flurry of something in his peripheral vision, and he starts, nearly pulls the horse to a stop again, so that he can pause to check. He speeds it up instead, and decides it’s because he’s going to be late for his meeting. Not because the dark is coming on far too quickly for his liking. Not because of all the movement he keeps thinking he sees in it. Of course there’s _movement_. It’s the woods. There are deer. Deer and foxes and rabbits and rats and wolves.

He could have done without remembering that last. Especially when the dog had gone with Martin - of course the dog had gone with Martin, the dog never went anywhere _without_ Martin. Even if he had kept it back, it would probably have abandoned him at the first available opportunity, in favour of sniffing out Martin’s trail. Maybe that should have been his plan all along, then he could have followed the dog, and found the right path himself.

Too late now, and his neck prickles with the thought of yellow eyes, glimmering in the dark, watching him from deep in the brambles. He can’t shake it, and the horse is definitely not happy now, though whether it’s because it’s picking up on his anxiety, or because there’s actually something out there, Jon has no way of telling.

Wolves can’t be that likely, he tries to persuade himself, even as he pushes the horse faster and faster, until he’s not sure whether they’re still on the right side of bolting. Martin had only ever seen them once, in all the time they had been living there, and Martin actually looks. Had been taking the dog out into the woods twice a day the whole time Jon had had it, and he tries to turn his mind towards remembering how many years that would be, how many walks Martin has been on.

He gets so caught up in the maths of it, trying to reassure himself with the simple fact that wolves were unlikely, that he doesn’t see anything ahead of him until his horse startles. Stops, so suddenly that Jon has to snatch at it to avoid being thrown clear, the reins digging at his hands. He scrambles back into the saddle properly, steadies himself as much as he can, and glares forward at whatever it was that had stopped them.

It’s a man. On his own, far less unruly horse, the creature so still that it might have been cut from stone. The man’s hat is pulled forward far enough to wreath most of his face in shadow, and what the dark doesn’t hide, the mask does. He’s dressed in black, seems to fade into the dusk around the edges, and Jon can feel his anger starting to falter back into fear.

“And what do you want?” he demands, before he can lose the last sparks of it entirely.

For a long moment, the man doesn’t respond. The part of Jon’s mind that’s irrational, that only gains more voice in the night, whispers that he’s some phantom, conjured out of the darkness to hunt him down for those false promises he’d made, or for a thousand other transgressions he can’t remember. For the last, simple one, of being here, of crossing its path. He can’t help but believe, just for that heartbeat, that even if he had had a torch, to cast light into the man’s face, there would have been nothing there.

“Your money,” the man intones, like it’s been rehearsed. Jon thinks that he sees the slightest twitch of a smile around his lips, as though it’s amusing to him, somehow. “Or your life.”

Jon should have some retort to that, he thinks. Something sharp that’ll cut the man from his path. But all he can do is notice the flintlock pistol that the man holds at his side, in a grip that would have seemed loose, all calm confidence, but for the stiffness of his arm, the blanch to the knuckles of his other hand where they hold his horse’s reins.

“Oh,” he says, and his voice is drifting, hazy, but he can’t seem to force it any louder, all his strength fixed on that gun along with his eyes. “I - er - I don’t have any.”

“You don’t have any,” the man repeats, matching Jon’s tone but cutting it through with a hard edge of scepticism.

“I - I used my last of it hiring the horse,” Jon tells him. His fingers start to ache around the reins as he realises that that must mean it’s his life, then. His heart makes itself known to his chest.

“You don’t _look_ like someone who’s short of money.”

“I don’t?” That alone almost shakes Jon out of his fear, the absurdity of it. His clothes might have been expensive, once, he supposes, but they’ve been repaired far too many times for them to still look it now. Especially as Martin’s best stitching, while still better than Jon’s, left a lot to be desired. He certainly doesn’t look like he has money, and the idea that this thief might think he does sits oddly in his head, doesn’t fit right.

“No,” the man says, but he offers no explanation. Just tightens the hand on the pistol.

“You - you can search me, if you like,” Jon says, tongue heavy in a rapidly drying mouth.

“Maybe I will,” the man says, and there’s definitely a smirk on his face now. Jon sees it at the periphery of his vision, and there’s a sudden flush through his head, an irritation that jerks him back to himself.

“You’ll have to be quick,” he snaps, straightening his back again. “I have to be in Stephen’s Green before nightfall.”

The man almost-laughs, pushes the air out through his nose.

“You’re late,” he says, gestures with the pistol to indicate the woods around them. He’s right. They’ve turned dark enough now that the trees ahead dissolve into shadow. “And facing the wrong way.”

“You had better let me get on, then,” Jon growls, the man’s lighthearted tones just fueling his annoyance. “Hadn’t you?”

“Why the hurry?” It’s clearly supposed to be a casual question, but the gun is too high for that. Not pointing at Jon, not yet, but the potential is clearly there. “Are you meeting someone?”

“That’s my business,” Jon says. “Yours is clearly with my money, and given that I have none-”

“Indulge me,” says the man holding the pistol.

Jon swallows, with difficulty, and tries to quash some of the anger. If he has to play the thief’s game to leave, then so be it.

“I received word,” he says. “That a relative of mine has died.”

“Oh,” the man says, and Jon bristles at it, at that assumption that he has Jon all figured out. “So, there’s an _inheritance_ in it for you.”

“I didn’t say-”

“You didn’t have to.” The man shifts slightly in his saddle, as though impatient, though none of it shows in his voice. “What will this man - this _person_ \- you’re meeting do, now that you’re late? Will he be giving your inheritance away?”

“I expect he’ll wait, my servant went ahead-”

“Get off the horse.” It’s said in the same tone as the rest of it, and it takes Jon a moment of staring to recognise it as an order.

“What?” he echoes.

“The horse,” the man repeats, a little more forcefully. “Get off it.”

The pistol’s lifting, and Jon’s boots are skidding in the dust, his ankles and shins complaining at the fastest dismount he’s ever managed, before he can manage another thought.

“There,” he says. Spreads his arms, slowly, trying to show that he has nothing on him. No money, no weapons. But the man isn’t looking at him any longer. Instead, he’s pushing his own horse forward, and Jon has to scramble to the side to avoid being struck.

“Go on,” he says, and pats at Jon’s horse’s flank with the back of one hand. “Go home. Off you go.”

The horse doesn’t even look back. Jon stares after it, for a moment too surprised to say anything, and then it’s gone from sight. He turns back to the man, glares even harder.

“What are you going to do now?” he demands. “Carry me?”

The man looks down at him, and at this new angle, Jon’s sure there’s a glint of amusement in his face.

“This is your first time being robbed, isn’t it?” he asks. “First time being held up? Interacting with a criminal element at all?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Jon says, but he knows there’s confirmation in the way that his arms fold themselves defensively across his chest.

The man huffs out another of those almost-laughs.

“You were stopped by a man with a gun,” he says. “Who demanded your money, and you proceeded to tell him that while you didn’t have any money now, you _will_ have some later. And, why, yes, on the off chance that you don’t make your meeting, there’s someone available to receive a ransom demand.”

“Oh,” Jon says. Tries not to think of the last promise he’d made Martin, but it just makes him more aware of the shape of the words in his head. _Please be careful, Jon_.

“Yes, _oh_ ,” the man mimics, humour more evident than ever. It might almost have been pleasant, Jon thinks, were it not for the situation. “Now, are you going to come along nicely, or am I going to have to tie you up?”

* * *

Martin has spent so long imaging the moment when the cart will break that it’s almost worse when it doesn’t happen. When the wood doesn’t split, the wheels don’t spin off into the trees, Jon’s cases don’t clatter into the road and spill his books into the dust. He’s sick with an anxiety that’s had nowhere to go, so just sits in his gut, his throat, his skull.

The cart _should_ have broken. The amount that Jon had paid for its hire, it shouldn’t even have made it out of Newlyn, and yet, here it is, trundling unevenly into Stephen’s Green, all of their remaining possessions still safely stowed.

Martin pulls the horse to a stop just beyond the treeline, his insides far too knotted to leave the woods behind completely before he has to. There’s a whine from the cart, and he glances back to see Gelert, sitting up on top of one of the cases, watching him for instruction.

“We need to wait for Jon,” Martin tells him.

He huffs, and slumps forwards on his paws again. Martin’s sure that the only word in the sentence that he had understood was _wait_ \- Jon’s never taken much of an interest in him, and Gelert returns the favour - but it’s enough.

They don’t really need to wait for Jon. There’s no real reason why Martin shouldn’t go on ahead, get Jon’s room ready for him, but the idea of going into this new place without him just doesn’t feel right. And it’s not as if there isn’t time - Jon’s meeting isn’t until nightfall, and that’s still a couple of hours away at least.

Martin leans back in the seat, stretches his arms out in front of him until his shoulders burn, then lets himself flop. He considers the town where they’ll be living now, just a field away. It’s larger than Newlyn, so many buildings that he can’t see the trees on the other side, where the forest circles around again. Gertrude Robinson’s house is on that side. Jon had found a map somewhere to show him, and Martin had looked at the little picture of the house with the crooked beams in the plaster, and decided that he liked it. That life would be better there.

It had been bad, before word of the inheritance had come. Jon hadn’t really been able to afford to keep Martin on, to the point that he was taking his wages in food and board when Jon couldn’t guarantee either of them, especially when it had become clear that he was going to have to sell the house to cover his debts. But Jon will have money again now. There will be food on the table and no threatening fists at the door, and there’s only one last hurdle between them and that future; they can’t get there until the will’s been sorted out. That won’t happen until Jon’s talked it all through with Gertrude Robinson’s executor, and they’re staying with him until it’s done.

His is the largest house in Stephen’s Green, half-timbered like Gertrude’s, but the stone infill has been left exposed, rather than plastered over. Martin finds himself scanning it for a side door, the servants’ entrance that he’s supposed to use, but he can’t make one out at this distance.

He must doze off watching it, because the next thing he’s aware of is a clatter from the back of the cart, and a sudden weight in his lap as Gelert scrambles into it, bored with waiting. He flops there as though he’s still a puppy and not a fully grown Irish Wolfhound, paws waving in Martin’s face. Martin scratches absently at his ears, then musses the curls oh the top of his head.

“Jon will be here soon,” Martin tells him, and he glances up at him, decides what’s being said to him isn’t relevant to his life, and leans his head more firmly against Martin’s fingers.

It’s later than it had been. The light has taken on the low golden hue of an approaching sunset, and there’s still no sign of Jon. The absence sits uncomfortably in Martin’s head, feeds on the anxiety still lurking there, and digs itself deeper. Jon should have arrived by now. Even if the sale of the house, the hire of the horse, had taken longer than it should have, he shouldn’t have left too long after Martin, and his horse would have been faster for not pulling a cart.

He should be here. Should have arrived so that he could catch Martin asleep, or Gelert sitting on the cases where he probably wasn’t allowed. He usually seemed to be summoned by anything which would irritate him, but there had been no reprimand, no mutterings about docking his wages.

Martin chews at his lip, and tries to convince himself that it’s fine. Jon has probably just got a bit turned around in the trees, but he knows that he’s unfamiliar with the woods, and he’ll have factored that into his plans. He’ll still be in time for his meeting. He’s never been late for anything, not in all the years of his life that Martin has been there for, especially not for something this important. And it’s not that he is now, it’s just that Martin’s early, because he’d left assuming something would go wrong, and it hadn’t. Jon will be there soon, and he wouldn’t welcome Martin going to look for him.

Still, the inaction buzzes under his skin, and even with Gelert’s reassuring weight against his legs, he feels like every passing second is another droplet of water, a flood that will drown him.

He ushers Gelert back onto the cases, and clicks his tongue to get the horse moving again. If Jon’s going to be late - which he _won’t be_ \- then Martin should go ahead and make excuses for him before it gets too dark. And he shouldn’t be so close to the woods at night anyway, not when he’s got Jon’s things with him. There are thieves out there, after all, and it wouldn’t take many of Jon’s books to equal Martin’s worth, not even considering what they mean to Jon: enough that he’d sold almost everything else to acquire them.

Every second of the journey across the field, he’s sure that he’s going to hear the beat of other hooves against the road. Jon’s voice, calling out to him, demanding to know what had taken him so long. There’s nothing, though Martin strains his ears for it. He doesn’t dare to look up at the sky again, but he knows it’s darkening from the chill against his skin.

He stops the cart again outside the main entrance, not wanting to be caught going into the servants’ one as a stranger, being taken for a thief, but he can’t quite bring himself to knock at the door. He busies himself unloading Jon’s books instead, with as much care as he can manage when the clarity of his vision is starting to drop away, the first traces of night starting to blur the clouds overhead. By the time that he’s finished, he decides, Jon will be here.

He’s trying not to see how few cases he has left when there’s a sudden burst of motion, Gelert leaping down from the back of the cart and moving to Martin’s side, his body held low, ears back and a low growl rumbling in his throat.

Martin turns, and starts back into the cart at the sight of a man approaching. He’s dressed well, but not particularly expensively. There’s an untidiness to him, but it feels so studied as to be almost neat.

“Jonathan Sims?” he asks, doubtfully. Martin can understand that. His clothes are patched even more that Jon’s are.

“Oh,” Martin says, leaning down to fuss at Gelert, now pressed right against his legs, in an attempt to calm him. It’s easier, too, to concentrate on the feeling of the dog’s fur between his fingers than to look at the man, and be sure that he’s doing something wrong, that this isn’t how he should be talking to him. “No, sorry, Martin Blackwood - Jon - Mr Sims - my mast-” his brain stalls, unable to retrieve the memory of how he’s supposed to refer to Jon. Jon had never stood on formality, but this looks like the sort of person who might. “He should - he _will_ be here soon. I’m his servant. He sent me on ahead. He had to sort out… something?”

“Right,” the man says. He doesn’t hold out his hand, but there doesn’t seem to be any annoyance in his face, when Martin plucks up the courage to sneak a glance at it. “Elias Bouchard. Do you have any idea how much longer your master will be?”

“No,” Martin admits, and hunches into himself, tries to swallow another pang of worry. “But he’ll be here soon, he’s never late.”

Elias Bouchard glances sceptically up at the sky, as if he’s judging the hour and comparing it with the one that he and Jon had agreed on for their meeting, and finding it wanting. He looks back to Martin, and the only sign that he’s put out by any of it is a slight quirk to his eyebrows.

“I suppose,” he says. “That you had better come inside.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s the waiting that’s the worst part, Jon decides. He has a plan, has had a plan for hours. It's not a particularly imaginative one, and it's a bit low on detail, but it's something. Better than just sitting there until someone comes to either pay the ransom or rescue him, but there's so much waiting in it. He waits and he watches and tries to ignore the need to _do_ that buzzes under his skin, and he hates it.

His captor is slouched against a tree a few metres away, on the other side of the smokeless campfire he'd constructed. He still wears the hat and the mask, not that there's much point in them; as the fire burns lower and lower, Jon can make out less and less of him, doubts he would be able to recognise his face even without the coverings. He doesn't seem to be paying attention, his head inclined, but Jon doesn't think he's asleep yet either. His breathing is still a little too fast, and every now and again, Jon thinks he can see the a faint glint of light from his eyes.

The flintlock is still in his hand, held loosely over one of his thighs, and, for the briefest moment, Jon considers trying to take it from him, but there is far too much that could go wrong. The ground between them is covered in twigs and leaf litter, all of it ready to snap or rustle underfoot and give him away, and even if he did make it, he has no idea whether or not the gun is actually loaded. If it isn't, he doubts he would be able to load it himself - his wrists are bound in front of him, firmly but not roughly. If it is, the risk of the man hearing him and waking is too great. It would take him a second to point it at Jon's head and fire, maybe less. It would take Jon at least five to just get to his feet.

On top of that, he's never killed anyone before, and he doesn't know if he could. If he would just be standing there, holding the pistol, his hands shaking so violently that he would probably miss anyway, until the man laughed and took it off him.

He daydreams it anyway, just for something to do. He never has to shoot the gun, there. He just holds it, and the man gives up, surrenders himself into Jon's custody. Jon marches him into Stephen's Green, excuses himself from the embarrassment of being late for his meeting with Elias Bouchard with the capture of a known criminal.

And he _is_ late. Late enough that Elias is probably wondering what has become of him. Perhaps they have already sent out a search party, and Jon's captor will die on the other end of a watchman's pistol. Or maybe they've just assumed that he's unreliable, undeserving of the inheritance he needs if he's to stay on his feet. He can't assume that Martin would have been able to convince them otherwise, so he's on his own. It doesn't matter. He's not relying on them anyway.

The man's head is lower now, his chin resting against his chest, and Jon counts the lengths of his breaths. Definitely slower now, and his face isn't even at the right angle to be watching Jon.

Jon brings his legs in closer as slowly as he can, wincing at the crackling of the leaves underneath his boots, and watches, sure that the man will snap awake, raise the pistol. There's nothing. He holds his breath as he pushes himself up, wavers for a moment, still hunched over, and straightens.

Still no response.

He wants to flee, to bolt like an animal, get away before his captor can wake up, race into the trees without caring about the noise it'll make. He manages to hold still, but his legs shake with the effort of it until the ground feels unstable.

Perhaps, he thinks, he could take the horse. It's tied to a tree a few metres away from its master, and it's faster on foot than Jon is. If he could get to it without waking the man, free and mount it with his wrists still tied, if he could convince it to leave with him, he could leave his captor far behind. But three _if_ s, he decides, is too many.

So long as he doesn't make too much noise, he should be able to make it a fair distance before he wakes up, even walking. Maybe even to Stephen's Green, or at the very least to a town where they'll be able to give him directions.

Jon tuns and takes a single, hesitant step away from the fire. His boot lands with a hiss of foliage that feels deafening, and he hunches against it for a long moment before he can bring himself to glance back over his shoulder. The man still hasn't moved, his breathing still regular. Nothing to indicate he's at all aware of Jon's escape.

He forces another slow step. Wishes that he could run, but he's not going to be able to risk that even when he's no longer in earshot of the fire. Not when he might crash into something hard enough to split his head open, or trip over a root and snap his neck. At best, he'll end up stumbling loudly enough to wake his captor and just end up teaching him to secure him to something.

It's dark, out there. Too dark for him to know which way to travel, the branches crowding out the shapes of the constellations overheard. He loses sight of the man, the fire, all of it. There's barely enough moonlight for him to see the ground in front of him, where it's safe to walk.

Eventually, he promises himself, the trees will clear. The forest can't go on forever. Maybe he'll be able to get Elias to send a horse for him, wherever he ends up. Then he'll go on with his new life. Martin will fuss around him like a mother hen, and while Jon would usually find the idea of it infuriating, in that moment, it sounds all right. More than all right, it's something to look forward to, for the first five minutes or so, before he'll have had enough. Something to keep him moving, something within reach, to keep a light on in his head as the night draws a little closer around him.

* * *

It is full dark now, and there is still no sign of Jon. Martin worries. Feels sick with it. With it, and with the way he's sitting in Elias' hall, in a chair that's too expensive for him. Even though Elias had told him to sit there, it still feels uncomfortable. Like someone else is going to come in, or Elias will suddenly change his mind, and then Martin will be in the wrong and have to answer for it. He knows it's nothing to do with the chair, really; the freefalling feeling behind his sternum is because Jon's not where he should be, not because he's aware of every speck of dust he leaves on the fabric. The meeting should have started hours ago.

Elias says nothing, but Martin can feel every second passing as though he had remarked upon it.

_He's never been late before_ , Martin wants to tell him, but he already has. Far too many times for it not to be wearing, even for someone as understanding as Elias has been. And besides, it clearly doesn't matter what the precedent is, because Jon is late _now_.

"I don't think he'll be arriving in time for the meeting," Elias says. Martin winces at the understatement, and Elias politely ignores it. "You do understand that I can't grant you access to Gertrude's house, not without having seen him and discussed it?"

"Yes," Martin says, almost without hearing it. It's not important. He doesn't think it is. But when he reaches for Gelert, still pressed against his legs and watching Elias like he would a wolf, his hands shake against the dog's fur.

"Of course," Elias says. Martin can feel that he sees the tremor, can't look at him. "We have rooms here. I can have one made up for your master, in case he arrives in the night."

"I should do that," Martin says. His face heats. "I mean, J-he likes things to be a certain way." He has no idea if the way that Jon likes things to be is any different from the way that other people like them to be, but the idea of someone else doing what's been his task for as long as he can remember is an uncomfortable weight on his thoughts. "If it's all right?"

"That'll be fine," Elias says. Martin still can't bring himself to look at him directly, but he can see a faint adjustment of his features, just in the periphery of his vision. "It'll keep you busy. I can see that you're concerned."

"Thank you," Martin says, and he's not even sure what for. It had just felt as though it needed saying.

"I assume you'll want to wait up for him," Elias says. "But I can ask someone to find you a place in the servants' quarters anyway."

_Servants' quarters_. Martin shrinks into himself, his fingers stilling in Gelert's fur, to the point that Martin can feel his gaze on him as well as Elias'.

"Unless it's a problem," Elias says, and Martin shifts so that he can't even see him out of the corner of his eye. It does no good. He can still feel his scrutiny. "Does _Jon_ prefer to have you close? In case he needs anything? This is a large house, with quite some distance between the rooms. I can have someone set you up something in his."

"Oh," Martin says. "No, it's fine. I'm just not used to-"

"Ah, yes," Elias concludes. "Your master's circumstances. Not used to the company."

Martin's caught between bristling, because no matter how much he's sure it's not intended as an insult - not when Elias has been so nice to someone who has wasted so much of his time - it still feels like one, and a relief that he doesn't have to explain it himself. Explain all that time since Jon had had to let the others go, wondering why he'd been kept on, then choosing to stay pay cut after pay cut, all of it in his own space. The idea of there being others again is just another prickle of discomfort in Martin's chest.

"I'm sure you'll grow used to it," Elias is saying. "This is a busier town than Newlyn, and once he has his inheritance, I'm sure your master will want to take on more staff again."

Martin stills so completely that even the shaking drops away. It hadn't occurred to him that there was anything about Newlyn he wouldn't be ready to leave behind. By the time that they had gone, all he had had was Jon, and he was all Jon had had, but they were going together, so it was fine, he had thought. He's not ready for there to be anyone else there again, not yet.

He wouldn't have stayed behind, though. He'd go anywhere if Jon asked him to, he knows that, and he could never quite bring himself to be troubled by it.

"Martin?" Elias prompts, waiting for the answer to a question that Martin wasn't listening to and doesn't remember.

"I should look for him," Martin says, finds himself standing, ready to walk out into the dark forest, lose himself among trees he can't see. "Jo-my master, he isn't used to - I know the woods, bits of them quite well, and he might be in trouble, I can't leave him all alone-"

"Sit down, Martin," Elias says, and for all the mildness in his voice, it's still so clearly an order that Martin thumps back down into the chair. "It's too late for you to go out tonight. There's no light out there, and there are a lot of dangers. If he's still not arrived by morning, I'll have a search party sent out, but most likely he's just got a little bit lost, and once the sun comes up, he'll be able to find his way. In the meantime, I don't think he would be pleased if he turned up to find that you had wandered off and got into your own trouble."

That _does_ sound like Jon. Sounds more like Jon than being late does, but an image of him hurt springs into Martin's head, and he can't shake it. Lying in a ditch somewhere, muddy water soaking into his clothes, a flash of blue-black above as the corvids start to gather with the morning. He swallows, with difficulty, and wonders if he'd be all right if he had a torch. If he stuck to the road, he'd probably be able to make it back to Newlyn without incident, and from there maybe Gelert would be able to find a trail.

"... and criminals, too," Elias goes on, with a little more force to it. He can probably tell how little attention Martin is paying. "If he has... run afoul of one of them, you're not best-placed to fight them off yourself."

Martin's eyes widen, and he jerks his head up to stare at Elias, trying to read the likelihood of it in his face, not caring that he probably shouldn't be making eye contact.

"They wouldn't have harmed him," Elias assures him. "People of your master's station would get abducted for ransom, rather than killed outright. You, I fear, would not be so lucky." He smiles at Martin, and Martin does his best to feel comforted, but he can't force it down over the teeming of the worry beneath his skin. "Admittedly, I have only had the briefest correspondence with Jon, but I think he would prefer it if, until he arrives, I kept you safe here with me."

* * *

Jon's vision does not adjust. It's far too dark for that. He stares into the clustered trunks, eyes wide for even the merest sliver of light, but it's barely enough to see his hand in front of his face as anything more than a deeper shadow than the others. Maybe he should have tried to make himself a torch, as difficult as it would have been with his hands bound, but there's no use in thinking so now. He wouldn't be able to find his way back to the fire even if he tried, has lost himself so completely that he's not even sure which way to go.

Maybe he's already circling back there, somehow. He wouldn't know. Every direction looks the same, the woods made up of shades of black.

He doesn't know why he stops. Maybe there's something in his head, smarter than the rest of him, that sees what he hasn't yet. Stops him before he can walk oblivious into his own death. But whatever the cause, he stops, stands and watches the night ahead of him.

There's something there, he realises. Something moving. A darker blot among the rest of the shadows. He freezes, and in his own silence, he can hear breathing, a quiet huffing, just carrying over the rustle of the leaf litter and the bramble in the thing's path. He's abruptly far too aware of his own, the expansion and contraction of his lungs, the rise and fall of his ribs, the noise of it, so obvious when there's nothing to be aware of but sound.

He takes a single backwards step, placing his boot down more slowly, more carefully, than he ever has before. Still, something cracks underfoot. There's an abrupt shift to the thing, a stillness that's utterly focussed on him, and something that Jon thinks might be a clack of teeth. He squints at it, trying to force resolution from the darkness, to make the indistinct haze of shadow into something he can recognise, categorise, decide how to best to escape.

There's a thick wall of fur, he thinks. Too much of it for a wolf. A wolf would growl, he thinks, a low rumbling that he would have felt in his bones. It doesn't, just snaps its teeth again, a noise that he can hear even over the insistent little voice in his mind that tells him that he really should have had Martin with him for this, that Martin would have known what to do.

He's still struggling to make sense of it when it moves. Comes straight towards him with a speed that he hadn't expected from its bulk. He has just enough time to register it as a bear before his mind breaks, shattered through by something primal, and he's running, running as fast as he knows how, directionless aside from away, nothing in his brain, no consideration of anything, just the seething whiteness of blind panic.

Something catches at one of his feet, a root or a snarl of bramble or a fallen branch, and he goes down hard, bound hands scraping against something sharp when he thrusts them forwards, trying to check his fall. It works, in so far as he doesn't crack his head into anything, but he can feel blood trickling down his palms, a wetness between his fingers that'll probably make it even easier for the bear to track him.

Jon curses, and tries to shove himself back to his feet anyway, only for a stab of pain from one of his ankles to send him crashing back down. He crawls forward, but there's no time. He can hear the bear behind him, the crunching of its paws over the leaves. He rolls onto his back, staring up towards the thing that's going to kill him.

There is fire. A great, sweeping arc of it, blazing a trail across Jon's vision that he can see even with his eyes screwed shut. When he can stand to open them again, there's the silhouette of a person in the faint light, standing between him and a pair of wide jaws. They swing the torch again, sparks spitting out towards the bear, and it stops. Shuffles backwards one step, and then another. Jon waits for his rescuer to move after it, lash out with the torch again, drive it off properly, but they don't. They just stand, more still than Jon would ever have had the nerve for, as the bear moves back.

Jon watches it leave, his breath coming in harsh pants. There's a hand, suddenly, gripping the rope around his own and dragging him up. He wavers, unwilling to risk putting weight on his ankle again, and finds himself leaning against his rescuer, breathing in the smell of woodsmoke that still clings to his clothes.

"Don't run," he says, voice low, as though trying not to startle the bear, and Jon lets his eyes slide closed as he recognises them. His captor, rendering his escape a failure and all of his nighttime stumblings utterly pointless. "If you run, it'll chase you, and it's faster. We'll stay here until it's gone a little further. Are you hurt?"

"Just my ankle," Jon says, and, as close as he is, he feels the tension in the man's frame drain away, as though he's actually relieved. Maybe he thinks Jon's going to be worth a lot more than he is.

"You _idiot_ ," he growls. Jon can imagine the rage in his face, contorting his features around the mask, and something in him, not quite scared into silence by what had happened, surges up to meet it. "Did you even have a plan? Or were you just going to wander about in the dark until either you broke your neck or something ate you?"

"I'm _sorry_ ," Jon hisses back. "If I thought I'd take my chances out here rather than sit around and wait for you to kill me!"

"I wasn't going to kill you!" the man snaps, loudly enough that Jon has to fight the urge to clap a hand over his mouth, in case the bear comes charging back towards them, ready to finish what had started, but he modulates it on his own. "I wasn't even going to _hurt_ you. I won't. I've never hurt anyone." He laughs, and it's barely audible, just a puff of air against Jon's cheek. "In fact, this actually makes it twice that I've saved your life. Maybe I should have started with that. But you'd never have believed me."


	3. Chapter 3

Martin oversleeps, that morning. Wakes at the sun streaming in through the window, picking out the dust motes that circle his head, and what sounds like the cooing of pigeons from a nearby dovecote. He's still curled awkwardly in one of the chairs in Jon's guest room, a blanket far nicer than any he's ever encountered before wrapped around his shoulders. He blinks, and then he blinks some more, because the blurring in his eyes takes far too long to clear. It's not right, he thinks. When he tries to stretch his limbs out, they don't buzz as they should when he's been lying like that. He doesn't sleep this late, not ever.

He struggles to stand, his mind so fuzzy that he stumbles forward, catches himself against one of Jon's cases, but the distance of it doesn't feel right. He should have moved them, he thinks, though it's muffled by the confusion in his head. If Jon had arrived late, he might have tripped. Maybe he could ask a member of Elias' staff if there was somewhere else he could leave them. This room doesn't feel big enough for all the books that Jon had collected.

His throat aches, itches, and he staggers across the room, looking for the small tin cup of water that Elias had brought him. Afraid to spill any, he'd left it as far as possible from all of Jon's books, along with the plate of food he'd hardly been able to force down, on a dresser by the door. The metal is so cold against his palm that he almost jumps back from it, his fingers aching as he tilts it towards him. It's empty, and he places it carefully back down.

It's just that he had stayed up too late, he decides. Far too late, waiting for Jon. He remembers wandering the room, as quietly as he had dared, listening to the silent house for anything that he might be able to interpret as Jon. There had been nothing, and there had kept on being nothing, until he had eventually subsided into the chair, overcome by a spinning in his head. If he had dreamed, he doesn't remember, and he's grateful for it.

When he knocks his elbows into the furniture, wincing at every clatter, more from the noise than from the smarting pain, he's sure it's because the room is still unfamiliar. Nothing is where it would have been in Jon's old house, nothing except Gelert, who's sleeping, sprawled in the patch of sun under the window, taking up as much space as possible.

Martin folds the blanket into a neat square, listening all the while for a knock at the door, for someone coming to demand why he hasn't been down yet, wondering what sort of master Jon was, to let his servants sleep so long. It comes, eventually, but they don't wait for an answer, just push on through, and Martin stumbles back, nearly tips himself over another of Jon's cases.

"I'm sorry," he says. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's quite all right," Elias says. He pushes the door to behind him, and then turns to Martin, stands there like he's waiting for him to speak.

"I never sleep that long," Martin tells him, and it feels like everything he has ever panicked about is going to rush from his mouth in a torrent of shrill regret. "Never, I don't know how-"

Elias holds up a hand, and Martin stutters into silence.

"As I said," he says. "It's all right. It was something of a late night, and I thought it was best to let you sleep."

_I should be beneath your notice_ , Martin thinks, but he can't say it. It would be ungrateful at best, and he doesn't want to give a bad impression of Jon, no matter how odd Elias' interest feels.

"Has there been any news?" he asks instead, and he can feel the tremor starting up again. He reaches for the case that he had nearly fallen over and rights it, trying to press his hands against it to keep them steady.

"Of your master?" Elias shakes his head. "I'm afraid not."

"You - you said you were going to send out a search party?" Martin says, his grip on Jon's case tightening. He knows he shouldn't be telling Elias has business, shouldn't even presume to know it, but he can't seem to stop himself. "I should go with them, I-"

"The search party has already left," Elias interjects, without even a twitch in his face to show that he might be annoyed. "I sent them off myself, first thing. They're the best people for the task. If there's anything left of him to find, they will find it. I'm sure they'll have him back here by nightfall. There's no need to worry."

"I should have gone with them," Martin says, struggling to reconcile _anything left of him_ with _nothing to worry about_ , trying to talk them both out of his head. "Do you think I might be able to catch up? I need to-"

"I think it would be best if you stayed here," Elias says. Doesn't raise his voice. His words are soft and smooth, and they still cut through Martin's so completely that it's as if they had never been there. "The group I sent out is disciplined and well-trained, and they know what to do should they encounter any sort of rogue element. I understand and appreciate your concern for your master, but I felt that it would be best if they went out alone. We wouldn't want you to unintentionally place him in more danger, would we?"

Martin stares at him. He wants to insist, wants to tell him that he knows Jon better than anyone else, that he'd be able to help, that he would never do anything that would risk him. Just stands there.

"I'm sorry, Martin," Elias says. Martin blinks, startled by the unfamiliar words, his thoughts disrupted. "I should have woken you and explained before they left, but you did seem so fraught last night. And I assure you, the best thing that you can do for Jon is be here to take care of him _when_ he arrives."

Martin nods, forces himself to look away from Elias, down at the floor. Tries to memorise the patterns in the unfamiliar boards. "Is there something I should do? Anything? I can make myself useful."

"I won't hear of it," Elias says. "I wouldn't dream of asking you to act as a member of my household. You're a guest, just as your master will be, when he's found."

There's a new certainty in his voice that Martin appreciates. It's not something that he has, is unreachable by his shaking hands.

"What should I do, then?" he asks, and he sounds smaller than he means to. Jon would probably have told him to speak up. Jon would probably have told him a lot of things, but he isn't there, and Martin can't guess at all of them.

Elias hesitates, as though he hadn't expected the question.

"You had a long journey yesterday," he says, finally. "And a difficult night. I expect you could probably do with some more rest."

Martin can't contradict him. He wants to, wants to say that he's had more than enough rest, that he has to do something, even if it has nothing to do with getting Jon back. Can't. He's probably trespassed on Elias' patience far too much already.

Elias leaves, and Martin stands where he is for a long minute, trying to calm himself. Perhaps, he thinks, he could check on Jon's books, make sure that they weren't damaged in transit, but his hands still don't feel right, and he knows he would drop one. Instead, he stands at the window, watches the road in the distance, and tries to form what he needs to see out of nothing but air. Imagines the faceless search party, Jon waving off their support and insisting that he's fine, because he is. He'll be fine, and then Martin will be fine, this thing with Elias will be sorted out, and they'll finally be able to start their new lives.

* * *

The bear doesn't come back. They wait for it long enough, the man shushing Jon whenever he opens his mouth. He would be offended, _wants_ to be offended, but the rest of him, the part that had slashed his hands open trying to escape a predator larger and far more dangerous than he is, snaps at him to just do as he's told. So he stays quiet, and eventually, the man cuts the rope around his wrists, and they start to move slowly in a direction that Jon assumes will take them back to their campsite. So slowly that Jon doubts they're going to reach it by dawn.

Every step seems to take about five minutes to complete, his ankle sending fire up his leg every time he even contemplates standing on it. The man supports most of his weight, an arm around his waist holding him up, and they hobble together, Jon clinging at his shoulders.

When the light finally starts to return, it's slow enough that Jon scarcely believes it. It's a grey tracery of everything at first, the faintest outlines where there had been none before, still a long way away from there being any colour to anything, but each time he blinks, it seems like there's a new detail to the wood that had been lost to him. He takes it in for a long time, guessing at the shades of green that the trees and the ferns and the moss will take, before he remembers to turn his eyes towards the man, and nearly stops in his tracks. Probably would have, if it weren't for the fact that his support was the only thing keeping him moving.

He isn't wearing his hat or his mask, and underneath them, he's so much younger than Jon had thought he would be. Looks to be of an age with him, but with the sort of pleasant, open expression that Jon has never wanted or been able to match. He's not sure what, exactly, he had been expecting, but it certainly hadn't been for the man to be so _handsome_.

The man looks sideways at exactly the right time to catch Jon staring, and something that looks like it might develop into a smirk starts to tug at the corner of his lips.

"What did you mean?" Jon asks, because he has to say _something_ , can't just let the man assume he'd been looking for any other reason. "You, you said this was the second time you've saved my life?"

The man's eyes narrow, just a little, and Jon almost wants to pull away from him, uncomfortable with the scrutiny, but he's sure he would just end up flat on his face in the leaves.

"Assuming that you're who I think you are," he says. "To be honest, you're not really what I had expected, but I can check that now, can't I? The man you were going to meet - it was Elias Bouchard, wasn't it?"

"How did you know that?" Jon demands, and this time he does pull away, yanking his arm away from the man, who stops, lets him go. He wobbles, precarious, but manages to stay upright. He knows he wouldn't be able to move, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that he can turn the full force of his glare on the man. "Do you know him?"

"Everyone in Stephen's Green knows about Elias Bouchard, to some extent," the man says, without urgency, as though he's completely unaffected by Jon's actions. "His name wouldn't mean much outside this place, and even then, for most of them, he's just a lordling like any other. They've probably never had any reason to come into conflict with him."

"But you have?" Jon wants to fold his arms, but he needs to keep his balance more.

"Not really," the man says. "Not as such. But I overheard him, talking to one of his people. About you. About Gertrude Robinson's inheritance." The man considers him further, looks him up and down, and even in the dim light, Jon is sure that he sees more of him than Jon would ever want. "I take it you didn't know that he means to kill you for it?"

"What?" Jon blinks, would have taken a step back if he could. "How? We - he - we wrote letters?" It sounds a lame excuse, even to him, and the man has the good grace to ignore it. It wasn't even as if Elias had seemed particularly harmless in his letters, or gone out of his way to be nice. He hadn't. It had just been completely normal business correspondence. Maybe it would have been easier to stomach if there _had_ been something odd about it, some sign that he'd been plotting.

"I knew I had to stop you from getting to him," the man says. "And I'm sorry I had to do it like this, but I didn't think you'd believe me if I just came out with it. Would you have?"

"No," Jon admits. He would likely have just dismissed it as some paranoid fool lower on the list of Gertrude Robinson's inheritors than he was. Martin would have worried about it, but Martin worries about everything, some of the time just so Jon doesn't have to, he's sure. "Probably not."

The man nods, but it seems to be half to himself, some sort of reassurance.

"If he finds you," he says, eyes focussing again. He moves back towards Jon, an urgency in the movement. "Or if you go to him, he'll kill you. Or he'll have you killed. I couldn't just do nothing."

"Thank you?" Jon says. It doesn't feel quite like it's the right thing to say, and he's not sure he means it, but it's ignored anyway. The man's looking away from him, considering the direction they were travelling in.

"We should-"

"Jonathan Sims," Jon says, cuts him off before he can get the rest of the sentence out. He probably already knows, but deciding that he doesn't seems to release a little of the pressure in Jon's chest, that he can still take the small power of introducing himself. "Jon."

"Tim," the man - _Tim_ \- says. He smiles, and even though it's a little distracted, the expression almost seems to glow with the burgeoning light, suits his face far better than the mask and the scowl had, as handsome as those had seemed before. "Tim Stoker."


	4. Chapter 4

It's turned cold. Martin wanders through Elias' garden, and tries to keep himself from struggling to remember how many layers Jon had been wearing when he had left, because there's nothing he can do about it. The afternoon sun isn't strong enough to warm him, hasn't even dried the dew from the grass in the house's shadow, but he lingers anyway, draws the sharp air into his lungs, hoping it'll scour away the last of the drowsiness he hasn't been able to shift. It doesn't, just sets him shivering from cold instead of fear, but it's outside or in, and there's more breathing space out here than there is in Jon's assigned room. He has already checked the cases far too many times for him to think there's any point in continuing to do so, but the inaction makes him feel like the walls are shrinking in on him.

Gelert doesn't seem to be enjoying himself either. Elias' housekeeper, Rosie, had suggested that Martin bring him out, but he seems to have adopted his mood, does very little of his usual bounding about, just wanders between the sculpted bushes, glancing back at Martin every now and again like he's asking when it'll be time to go in.

Martin knows he should take him further out, that he needs more exercise, but he can't bring himself to leave Elias' grounds, too afraid that something will happen when he's gone. He gets as far as the edge of Elias' property, staring out towards the trees, and that's when he sees them. A small group of people, heading along the road from Newlyn.

He doesn't want them to be the search party, can tell even at that distance that they don't have Jon with them. They must be some other group, and the actual search must still be out there, checking every stream, every tree, combing every inch of that forest until they find Jon and bring him back safely, like Elias said they would. They won't give up. Martin wouldn't, in their place, but he forces himself to swallow the insistent little voice telling him he should be out there. Elias is right when he says that Martin would get in the way, he tells himself. He doesn't know how to fight. He would try, if it was what he had to do to get Jon back, would do anything, but it's best to leave it to the people who are actually good at it.

There are ten of them, but only one actually comes onto Elias' property. The rest loiter just off the road, talking amongst themselves, but Martin's far too far away to make out any of what's said, while a woman starts down the path towards Elias' door. She's dressed in black, and carrying enough pistols to tangle nausea into Martin's stomach.

She's met by Rosie before she can even knock, but any conversation they have must be short, terse, because Rosie steps aside and gestures her in after barely more than a second. The woman is holding something, waves it in Rosie's face, but Martin can't see it properly, and then she's gone, vanished into the building, and Rosie is closing the door behind her.

Martin considers going up to the rest of them, asking them, but instead, he calls Gelert back, and starts to head back towards the servants' entrance. Even if they are the search party, he doesn't have the authority to speak to them. Elias will be told, and if he wants Martin to know, Martin will be told, too. He just has to make sure he's accessible.

Gelert's dew-flecked paws leave smears along the base of the servants' staircase, but Martin can't bring himself to care. No one stops him, no one snaps at him, and it's only water. It'll dry.

When Elias comes to him, he's waiting in Jon's room, watching out of the window as the woman leaves again, snaps something to the rest of the group before they start to head back towards Newlyn. He tries to observe strength in them - it's a trick, at that distance, and he knows it, but he has to reassure himself that Jon's safety is in the best possible hands, that it's no bad thing they aren't his.

He doesn't hear Elias, but when he straightens away from the window before his breath can mist the pane, he starts at the sudden sight of his reflection. He turns too fast, and sets his head spinning again. Elias says nothing, just stays close to the door, as though he's trying not to intrude.

At least Gelert doesn't growl at him this time, but he's still not happy, stiff like he is with some of the guard dogs back in Newlyn. Martin wants to reassure him, but there's no point. Gelert would know it was a lie.

"Is there any news?" Martin whispers, when he continues to say nothing. Just watches Martin across the distance as though in sympathy.

"They didn't find your master," Elias says. It's redundant. If they had found Jon, he would be here. "But Daisy - the woman in charge - says there were some signs of a struggle, not far from one of the roads. There was blood."

"Blood?" Martin echoes, his fingers tangling themselves in his ragged sleeves so tightly that it feels as though he would snap them if he tried to move them too fast.

Elias holds something out towards him, shakes it a little when Martin doesn't immediately move to take it. He hesitates, and hesitates, and then holds out a clawlike hand, takes a quick step forward, sure he'll lose his nerve. Elias drops it into his grip, and he pulls back again like a nervous animal taking a chunk of meat.

"Is it his?" Elias asks.

Martin moves his closed fist back into the light from the window, and only then dares open his fingers. The item is a scrap of cloth, frayed at one end, still with torn wisps of stitching at the other. He recognises it, a piece of one of Jon's old shirts that he'd had to cut up to repair a newer one. He'd jabbed his finger on the needle when he'd been sewing it on, but Jon had been reading aloud to him at the time, and Martin hadn't wanted to break the spell of his voice. Even though the words and concepts of it hadn't been ones that Martin had known, he hadn't wanted to be anywhere else, listening to anything else, so he hadn't moved. Had just carefully set down the cloth, and tried not to bleed on anything that looked important. It had always been one of Martin's good memories, the way Jon had let his eyes flick up from the page to Martin every now and again, smothering any sting from the needle, but it feels soured now.

"It's his," Martin says, closing his hand again. "Did - did they say how much blood there was? Is - Jon - is he-"

"It wasn't a significant amount," Elias tells him, taking pity before Martin can find a way to word what he doesn't even want to think. "Barely more than if he had just caught himself on a bramble. Nothing to indicate any sort of serious damage. No body."

Martin exhales, and his fingers ache around the patch. "Is he just lost, then?"

"There was another set of tracks," Elias says. "It looks as though he's been taken against his will. They would have stayed out, but they felt it was important to tell me. I've sent them out again, and they'll keep looking. They'll find him. And I doubt that whoever has taken him will be able to put up much of a defence against them." He tries another smile, but it has far less effort in it than his usual ones, is almost distracted. His eyes don't focus on Martin either, and Martin's spine prickles with the idea that he's been dismissed, though he has nowhere to go. "Nothing to worry about."

* * *

Jon could have done without knowing just how easy it would have been for him to die the previous night, even before the bear, before he'd thought that Tim was going to exact some terrible revenge for his escape attempt. The woods are so thick with tree roots and bramble thickets and loose stones, that by rights, he should have fallen. Should have caught his foot on something, pitched over, and let the night sounds muffle the noise of his neck breaking. Perhaps it's not the route that he had taken first, but he can't imagine that that was much clearer, not when there are thorn scratches stinging through his clothing, a counterpoint to the lancing pain from his ankle.

Tim seems to know his way around, though. He finds the easiest path through it all, and they're almost starting to get a bit of speed up, when he stops. Halts so abruptly that Jon nearly falls, jarred from his hobbling rhythm, and it's only Tim's grip on him that keeps him upright.

"What is it?" Jon demands. He squints into the trees ahead of them, but he can't separate anything from the woods' usual movements, birds and squirrels and the shift of the leaves in the breeze.

Tim doesn't answer. He shoves Jon sideways, leaves him snatching at the nearest trunk to stop himself from toppling. The bark is rough against the cuts on his hands, and he nearly yanks them away again.

By the time that he has steadied himself, Tim has crouched down, a few paces ahead of where they had been. He scrutinises something on the ground, frown digging itself deep into his features.

"Tim?"

"Someone's been this way," Tim says, and everything that had been pleasant about his voice is gone, leaves something dark and angry that turns Jon's skin to gooseflesh. "More than one someone."

"Elias?" Jon asks. He leans as far as he can from the tree without shifting his weight too much, but all he can make out is a load of churned earth and leaf litter that seems no different from what they had been walking on all morning. Martin would have known better. Tim clearly does.

"Probably." Tim straightens up, moves back towards Jon. He's faster now, agitated. "People don't usually wander even just this far off the road. Mostly hunters. We have to get back, move camp so we're deeper in. They're probably still out here looking."

"Deeper into the woods?" Jon's alarm is swallowed by a hiss as Tim takes his weight again, less carefully than before, urgency crowding out concern about Jon's injury. "If Elias is the danger, why don't we just go to another town?"

"Thought you wanted your inheritance," Tim mutters, hauling him into motion again.

"Not more than I want my life," Jon retorts.

"Besides," Tim says, ignores him. "Elias will have sent people to all the nearest towns, and they'll stay there until he calls them back. We could try getting further out, but I'd prefer to stay in the woods that I actually know."

"They would kill me in a town?" Jon asks, incredulous. "Where there are witnesses?"

Tim shrugs, looks away from him, focuses more than he needs to on the ground. Starts to pull them faster, until, for all that Jon does his best to keep up, Tim's almost carrying him.

"I don't know the details of Gertrude Robinson's will," he says. "If all he needs to do to get his hands on your inheritance is for you to die, then it doesn't matter where you do it. I expect he'd rather kill you out here, and claim that you were dead when they found you, but witnesses aren't going to save you. He'll find a way."

"So, we're just going to stay out here until he loses interest?" Jon glares at the passing trees with a distaste he can feel in his teeth.

"Unless you can think of any alternatives." Tim doesn't wait for him to suggest any, just hauls him faster and faster, until Jon doesn't have the breath to talk anymore. He can't tell if it's deliberate, or just that Tim wants to get them away from even the faintest trace of a search party as quickly as possible. Both, perhaps.

Tim says nothing, and the part of Jon's head not focussed on keeping moving wonders what might have happened, if he hadn't stopped him. He would have kept going, of course, might have eventually found his way to the town, and he wonders if the vaguely pleasant Elias Bouchard he had got an impression of from the letters would have used a pistol or a knife or just found some way of making it look like an accident. If he would even have done it himself, when it sounded as though he had people for that sort of thing.

He wonders if he ever would have known what was happening, or if it all would have been over too quickly.

They reach the campsite without incident, but from the way that Tim is behaving, Jon might have believed that the whole thing was covered with enemy footprints, perhaps along with a nice note from Elias' hunters, saying that they had called but no one had been there, so they would be back in five minutes. He goes immediately to the small pile of his belongings, ignores his horse's whicker of greeting, leaving Jon to support himself against its saddle.

"Can you climb on?" he asks, as abrupt and unfriendly as he had been when he had stopped Jon in the first place.

"I'll be fine," Jon says. He grips at the bridle, hesitant, but Tim doesn't seem to notice, even when he circles around Jon to start slotting things into the saddlebags. Only pauses to pull his mask up.

"Is that really necessary?" Jon says. "I mean, I've seen plenty of your face."

"You're not the only person who might be out here," Tim says. "Can't be too careful." He shoots Jon one of those smiles, just briefly, the sort that makes him feel even less like he's going to be able to make it onto the horse. "Maybe we should get you one, too, now that you're a fugitive and all." He seems to realise what he's said, and the smile vanishes so completely that Jon feels almost cold without it. "We should get moving."

* * *

Elias' search party is back again not long before dark. Martin watches from the window as they make their way along the road, can tell without counting that Jon isn't with them, even though their shapes are losing definition with the approach of dusk. Doesn't wait for them to get any closer, for Elias to come and tell him again that there's no sign, no news, no Jon. He just turns his back on them, grabs the meagre bundle of belongings he had never unpacked, and opens the door as quietly as he can.

There's no one out there, no one to stop him.

"Gelert," he calls, and listens for the click of claws over the boards, unwilling to look away from the empty corridor, in case someone appears in it when he's not paying attention.

He's not staying. He can't. Not any longer.

Gelert's nose prods into his side, questioning why he's being ignored, and Martin has to use even that slight push to propel himself into the corridor. He doesn't stop, afraid to lose his nerve. Gelert trots after him, as amiably as if they're just going for a walk, like always, and not disobeying the direct order of the master of the house.

There's no one out there. No one on the servants' staircase. Martin quickens his pace, clattering down the steps, only to stop so abruptly at their base that Gelert makes it a few metres ahead before he realises Martin isn't with him, and then his limbs are stiffening, lips curling and twitching with a growl that isn't quite audible yet.

Elias is standing in the way of the door, his arms folded. He's seen Martin. His eyes don't move from him, even at a snarl from Gelert.

"Martin," he says, his voice still light and pleasant, as though he doesn't know that Martin is about to go against his orders. He does, he must, because otherwise he wouldn't even be there. "Where might you be off to?"

"I'm sorry," Martin says. Doesn't meet Elias' eyes, because then he'll see that Martin isn't sorry at all. "But I have to go and look for Jon. I can't stay here, not if he's out there, if he could be hurt. I don't expect you to spare anyone to go with me, and I'll try not to get in the way of your proper search party. I have to go. I'm sorry."

"And what makes you think you'll succeed?" Elias asks. "Where my best have so far failed?"

"Nothing," Martin admits, shrinks in on himself. He forces himself to move down the corridor, pull Gelert back behind his legs, and it's easier than looking at Elias. "I don't think I will, but I have to try. There's someone I could ask, in Newlyn, he's a p-he's really good at tracking." He realises the implication of that, curses himself. "Not that your people aren't, he's just, the best I've ever met?" And incredibly unlikely to go out of his way on Jon's account. "He might help me."

Elias lets out a long, heavy sigh. "I can see I'm not going to change your mind," he says. "If you find him, and he's being held against his will, you will come and tell me, without trying to rescue him on your own? You understand that your dying or being captured will do nothing to help him in that scenario. Whereas I can send trained people to rescue him, but only if I know where he is."

"I will," Martin says. He thinks that he sees Elias shift slightly, as though he's considering moving aside. "I'll come and tell you. I promise, I'll do everything I can to get him back here safely." He tries a smile, but it doesn't feel like he's got it right. Needs more effort, but he's expending enough of that keeping the nausea down. "I'll be all right. I'm just a servant, who'd want to hold me hostage?"

Elias actually smiles back, though his is considerably less nervous, and seems to have far more amusement to it than Martin's joke had actually warranted.

"I understand that I'm no use to Jon dead," Martin says. "Really."

Elias actually opens the door for him, holds it wide, and Martin stares at it for a long moment, before he's hurrying towards it, ushering Gelert ahead of him. He has to get out, he thinks, before Elias can change his mind, but finds himself pausing, level with him on the threshold.

"You'll look after his books?" he says, and wishes that he could fold in on himself so completely that he would become utterly non-existent. He doesn't know what's possessed him. They're valuable, not just financially, but it's not as if Elias is going to start tearing pages out of them. He doesn't need to be told.

Elias just raises his eyebrows, and gestures for Martin to go on, no anger in it. Still far kinder than Martin deserves, just as he's been since he'd arrived. Going above and beyond to find Jon. Martin should have known better than to say anything, but now it feels as though it would be impolite not to finish.

"They're important to him," he says, but he doubts that that covers it. It certainly doesn't explain the hours Jon spends with them, how he'd let his household fall by the wayside for them, the trips he'd gone on to find them. That quietly proud smile, when Martin had first managed to read aloud a sentence without stumbling.

"Then I'll look after them," Elias says.

Martin deflates a little at the assurance, breathing out in a rush of air. Then he steps outside, into the darkening world beyond the door. A part of him wants to turn tail from it, ask Elias if he can wait until morning, but the rest glares at it, calls it traitor, and assures him that it'll be all right. He knows the road back to Newlyn, will be perfectly able to follow it, even in the dark, especially as he's got Gelert with him. It's a long walk, but he'll manage it. And it'll be _doing_ something, not just sitting around, waiting for Elias' search party to either find Jon or his corpse.

"Best of luck," Elias says, and the door closes before Martin can look back, to give in or to offer one last reassurance that he'll do whatever it takes.

There's nothing to do but head on out. It's raining, he realises, and turns his face into it, letting it soothe the lines the worry has been working into his skin. He blinks, tries to make out the edges of the cloud, estimate how far over the woods it stretches, if it might be washing away important traces of Jon.

He passes Elias' search party, loitering at the edge of the road, waiting for the woman - _Daisy_ \- to come back, and hunches his shoulders. Tries not to check whether or not they're staring at him. They wouldn't have any reason to, he tells himself; he's just a servant, off to look for his master, not that they know that. He still feels watched, though. Judged. It's an uncomfortable heat around his spine, and he struggles not to break into a run. Even if they are looking at him, it's probably because he's a fool, wandering towards the woods as night's falling. There's no ill will to it.

They don't speak to him, but he's sure he feels their scrutiny, like a group of buzzards eyeing a field mouse. He doesn't speak to them, either. Won't ask to tag along. He'd get in their way, just as Elias had said. Better to leave them to their own rescue, hope it goes more smoothly than his. They know what they're doing. Will probably have Jon back by morning.

Martin wonders, as he leaves them behind, if Jon will send word to him, when Elias' search party finds him. If he'll be angry with Martin, for leaving his things with someone who was, however nice he seemed, a complete stranger, angry enough to let him wander for a few days, and then he rips the idea out of his head, disgusted at it. Jon's a little rough with his words, sometimes, but he would never do that. He wouldn't leave Martin out in the woods alone, wouldn't leave him behind, no matter what.

Martin won't leave him behind, either. He'll search everywhere he can think to, will only go back to Elias once he's followed every trail and found it cold. And then the proper search party will find him. They'll have to. He doesn't want to think about what might happen otherwise, about whether Elias might take him on out of pity, about whether he'll have to go back to what little he had left in Newlyn, most of all about the idea of never seeing Jon again. So Martin will find him, or they will. There are no other options.

The trees close over his head, and he tries to comfort himself by thinking, with all the force that his brain can muster, that Jon is out there, somewhere. Alive, under similar leaves.


	5. Chapter 5

It's nearly nightfall by the time that Tim finally relents, and agrees that they have probably gone far enough. It's still a little grudging, but Jon aches in places he didn't realise it was possible to ache in, and he's ready to argue viciously against any insistence that they continue. They've left the tracks of Elias' search party far behind, the bear even further, and Jon needs rest like he needs air.

Tim dismounts first, like it's no trouble for him at all. Probably isn't. He leads the horse a few metres further, looking for somewhere appropriate to tie it, and Jon sits and watches, unwilling to even attempt to climb down until he knows the creature's not going to unexpectedly move. Tim's hands move deftly through the knots, ones they've probably made a thousand times. Jon stares at them, too exhausted to look anywhere but straight ahead, until Tim clears his throat, no longer standing in the way of Jon's eyes. Instead, he's waiting beside the horse, arms stretched out to help him down.

"I'm fine," Jon tells him, and matches the quirk of Tim's eyebrows with a frown.

"If you say so," he says. "But you didn't do so well getting up there in the first place - I didn't know they taught people of your class to swear like that. Do you really want to sprain your other ankle?"

"Fine." Jon tries to increase the intensity of his scowl in response to the smile that's taken up residence on Tim's face. It slides off without effect.

"Right," Tim says. "Best you come off this way, don't want to move that leg too much, can you-"

"I _have_ ridden a horse before," Jon snaps. He swings over so that he's sitting with both feet dangling towards Tim, and starts to slip from the saddle immediately. He tenses in preparation for the crunch of his foot striking the ground, mind shrinking, but then Tim's hands are at his waist, taking his weight, lifting him gently down. There's almost no impact. He wants to glance down, check that he's really standing, because it should have _hurt_ , but Tim is so close that Jon can't look at anything else.

"There," Tim says, softly, his breath a stirring against Jon's skin. "That wasn't so bad, was it? And I promise I won't tell a soul."

Jon doesn't really hear it, his mind too busy examining the planes of Tim's face, to the point where words just become sound. Tim's hands linger, and Jon finds himself coughing and leaning back into the horse, awareness pushing itself roughly back into his head.

"You can let go now," he says.

"So can you," Tim points out. He tips his head to indicate where Jon's gripping the shirt at his shoulder. Jon blinks at his knuckles, twisted into the material, and wonders when that can have happened. It takes a long moment for him to convince his fingers to release themselves, but they do, one by one.

"Sorry," Jon says, trying to pat the creases awkwardly out of Tim's shirt and the angles from his hand. "I'm not accustomed to, to..." To _what_? To dismounting? To physical contact? He supposes it's probably that. It's not as if he has many, or any friends at all, not since Georgie moved away, no one who really touches him, not like that. Martin's touches never stay. He always yanks them back too fast, as though he expects to be reprimanded. Jon can't tell if he's opposed to it or not, just knows that when the warmth of Tim's hands is abruptly gone, it doesn't make him feel any better.

"It's all right," Tim says. "You're injured, and you didn't strike me as a very confident horseman even before that. Not your fault, but the horses can tell." He clearly thinks Jon's apologising for grabbing at him, or for needing help in the first place. Jon isn't going to correct him. Can't explain everything else, not before he understands it himself.

"I'd like to sit down," Jon says. He gestures towards one of the trees, turns his head towards it, too, so that he's not looking at Tim anymore. "Could you, er..."

"Oh," Tim says. "Of course." He hurries through the words, and hurries even more through the motions. He shuffles Jon over to the tree so fast that the weight of his arm around him is gone even before he could come to terms with it being there.

"Thank you," Jon says. He does his best to smooth the resentment out of it, because it's not for Tim, it's for the fact that he needs help to move at all.

"I'll see if I can find you something to use as a crutch," Tim says, so, clearly, he's failed. "But you should really stay off that. I can try and bind it for you later."

"A crutch would be nice," Jon says. Tim's expression turns disapproving, just like Martin's had always done whenever he'd disregarded the doctor's advice, and he struggles to inject a little levity into his next words. "I could use it to fight off the people who are coming to kill me."

"They will have pistols," Tim says, and his voice has gone cold. The hint of the smile that seems to lurk, usually, at the edges of his face, is completely gone. Jon swallows, and a twist of regret settles in his stomach. "If they find us, we're not going to have much of a chance to fight back."

"You have a pistol too," Jon points out, hates how petulant it sounds, but it's been too long a day with too much pain in it for him to put much effort into resisting the urge to argue.

"They'll have _more_ pistols." Tim turns away from him, back uncomfortably straight. "But I think we've gone deep enough to avoid them for now. I'll go out and set some snares, maybe they'll be able to catch us some breakfast."

"Breakfast." Jon utters it like a curse, abruptly aware of all the hours it's been since he had something to eat. The previous night, but he hadn't been able to stomach much of what Tim had given him then, had been vaguely concerned that it might be poisoned, and it didn't seem like there was anything else in the way of rations. And before that, it was probably before he had left for Stephen's Green.

"I'd offer to bring some mushrooms or berries back," Tim says. "But I don't know which ones won't kill you."

Jon has a book about that, somewhere. It's not one he's ever had much interest in, would have exchanged it for something better, except that he'd known Martin liked that sort of thing, had hoped that it might help him learn. Martin had tried, but it hadn't been an easy text, and it hadn't been long before he'd been distracted by some small poetry collection that Jon had found for him.

He wishes he had paid more attention to it. As it is, all he can remember is a cursory glance at the pages, the careful illustrations. The spine had been slightly damaged, and on the page that it always cracked open to, there was an illumination of a snake, curling around closely-written text identifying it and discussing the common responses to a bite from it. He thinks there had been plants in there, as well, but there's not much point in knowing that without having it with him.

"Come back safe," Jon says, because it looks like Tim's waiting for him to say _something_ , and all that springs to mind is what Martin always said to him, on the rare occasion that he would leave Newlyn without taking Martin with him. He's not sure it's the right thing to say even before he's halfway through it, and the words catch in his throat like a bramble stem.

Tim turns back just enough to offer him a smile, but it looks a little too constructed. Probably would have fooled someone who hadn't just spent so long with him, but Jon has observed enough of Tim's real smiles to tell the difference.

"I'll be back before dark," he promises.

"I'll be... here," Jon says, tightly. Tim probably doesn't need the assurance, it's not as if Jon could actually go anywhere else unaided, but he nods anyway. Jon watches him go to the horse's saddlebags, rifling through them for something, and tries not to think too hard on him. He wants to, wants to pick at him, unravel his reasons, understand why it's so important to him that he manage to protect a near-complete stranger that he goes so stiff the second he's reminded that there's a threat. But he can't, can't risk that it'll all come apart, and he'll lose the only thing keeping him safe.

* * *

Martin walks the night away. Walks until his feet ache, his legs ache, his head aches. Finally feels _better_. The air's cool enough to clear the last of the heaviness that had been sitting in his skull since he had woken up, and at least now he's doing _something_. Even when he finds nothing on the road, no sign of Jon, it's more than sitting in that room in Elias' house, watching from the window and waiting for his sky to fall.

He stays on the path with no trouble. There's enough moonlight for him to see the ground under his feet and far enough ahead not to stray into the trees, and he knows the way.

It's nearly dawn by the time that they come within sight of Newlyn, and Martin forces his tired limbs faster, past the houses on the edge of the woods. He doesn't linger around them, half not wanting to meet anyone, and half needing to stop his legs walking that familiar path to the place that had once belonged to Jon. It's not somewhere that he can get back to, not how he'd like to.

It doesn't help that Gelert remembers that way, too, bounds a couple of paces along it, and then looks back at Martin with a questioning whine, when he doesn't follow.

Martin hunches his shoulders, stares at the ground so that he won't be tempted to pick out that familiar roof, and keeps going. Doesn't stop until they've reached the stables at the opposite edge of the village.

Jon's hired horse, a brown and white mare that the owner had assured him was even-tempered when he'd reserved her, is out in the pasture with the others. Martin recognises the pattern along her flanks, even at that distance, and he has to swallow the impulse to rush into the building, demand to know what time she had got back, if she'd seemed afraid. There's a prickling awareness at the back of his mind that Jon might have short-changed the owner on the animal's hire in the first place, and he doesn't want to end up being kept back to pay one of Jon's debts again. Not that money would be a problem for Jon, not once he received his inheritance, but he would certainly consider it an annoyance. And Martin can't afford it, not when he needs to be out looking.

He doesn't linger. Stays just long enough to assess the mare's gait, decides that she doesn't seem to be hurt, and turns back towards the woods. Newlyn is still mostly asleep, and he doesn't want to be there when it wakes up.

The trees ahead of him look far bigger than they had ever done before. They seem crowded together, too many of them, even in just the part that he can see. Jon could be anywhere, out there. He had probably tried to take one of the short cuts that he had always seemed to think should exist, and been taken before he could make his way back to the main road.

Martin could look for him for years, if he just wandered, searched with no direction, and never find him. He wishes he'd trained Gelert for scents. But Jon had never requested it, or taken much of an interest in the dog at all, and Martin had had enough to do.

He blinks, holding his eyes closed a little too long, and then turns towards the other house that he was hoping to avoid. It's secluded from the others, a little way into the trees. Not a short walk. One with far too many opportunities for him to turn back. Martin swallows and strides through them, thinks of Jon, thinks of everything that might have happened to him. He has to take this chance, no matter how queasy it makes his stomach.

The trees finally part enough that he can see it, and Martin lets out a breath when his anxious glances find no smoke rising from the chimney. Closer, and there's no movement, no light at the windows.

Nobody home.

Emboldened, Martin picks up his pace, Gelert breaking into a trot beside him. Soon enough, he can pick out the familiar details of the front door, the whorls and knots in the wood. The next thing, his brain tells him, still trying to move through ingrained motions, is for him to knock at it. If there's no response, he's to circle around to the other side, where there's a rose climbing up the wall, stubborn and sweet, and a place to sit and wait.

He doesn't. He just stops, a few metres away from the door, and wonders what he's supposed to do now.

Gelert barks, high pitched and abrupt enough that Martin starts. He jerks his attention in the direction that Gelert's facing, but there's nothing to see but the slightest of movements in one of the shrubs. They're growing closer in than he remembers, autumn leaves still bright and full. The treetops are still well back from the house, though, leaving an open sweep of sky overhead, already turning blue with the day.

"Hello?" Martin calls, but his voice doesn't really carry.

There's no reply, and some of the tension drains from his shoulders. Probably just a squirrel.

Something bursts out of the undergrowth, shaggy and dark. Martin stumbles back, but Gelert almost dances forward, letting out another bark. The thing - another dog - flops forward, tail waving and hindquarters stuck in the air, in an invitation to play. Then it notices Martin, and bounds past Gelert to cannon into him. Martin stumbles again, balance knocked out of him, but manages to keep his footing. He steadies himself, and scratches at the dog's ears, an awkward response to the paws pressed against his torso.

"Leucon!" Martin says, finds himself smiling despite everything. "Hello, Leucon! I missed you too!"

Leucon drops down again, leaving wet smears down Martin's clothes. There's a sparkling of dew settled over him, like he's been rolling in it.

"Where are the others, then?" Martin asks. "Is your master around?"

Leucon noses at his pockets, searching for food, turning his muzzle away when it becomes clear that Martin has none to give him, and that sniffing at Gelert is far more interesting.

"It's all right," Martin tells him, though neither of the dogs is listening, too caught up in the possibility of _fun_. "You're the one I was hoping to see. Would you like to help me? I'm looking for Jon. He's _my_ master. You never met him, did you?"

Not that that matters. He's got that scrap of Jon's clothing in his pocket, and he's seen Leucon track enough times to know how to tell him to _seek_. And maybe he shouldn't take him, not without talking to his owner, but there's no one around, and it's an emergency.

He'll bring Leucon back soon, he tells himself. He's not going to let anything happen to him, and he's going to bring him back, as soon as they've found Jon, and then he'll talk.

In the meantime, he leaves the little cottage with the climbing rose behind, whistling for the dogs to follow him, and he doesn't think about how relieved he is to set his back to it. He has a trail now, after all. One that will have Jon at the end of it.

* * *

Elias' people come for him in the night. The first that Jon knows of it is a shout, loud enough to make him feel like his skull is about to shatter. He claps his hands over his ears, elbows knocking into the tree behind him as he tries to stand. His legs don't work; they just fold under him, send him thumping down to writhe in the leaf litter like a dying snake.

Tim doesn't even have time to level his pistol. There are too many of them, a wild rush of bodies through the trees like a pack of foxhounds. Jon can't tell if it's him or Tim or Tim's horse that is screaming, but he hears the noise with cut-glass clarity, feels it in the surface of his skin.

Tim's gun falls, clatters across the ground towards him. Tim is bleeding. Jon reaches for the pistol through a haze of his own pain, hanging thick over his vision, and a boot crunches down over his hand.

Even if he had been able to reach it, it's too late for Tim anyway. They don't need him. They don't need Jon either. Just his corpse, to drag back so that Elias can claim the money. They'll blame it on Tim, hang his body on a bough at the edge of town, make sure that everyone knows, and it will stay there until long after the crows have picked it clean.

Jon is crawling. He can see Tim's horse's hooves, at the pulsing edge of his vision, and something in his brain is insisting that if he can just get there, he'll be able to get away, make it out into the night, to safety, and he can't think around it. Even though he knows that in his current state he would never be able to mount it, ride it, survive on his own in the woods.

It's better, he supposes, then just stopping. Curling there, and begging them not to kill him, offering to sign it all over to Elias willingly, if only they'll let him live.

A hand grabs onto his ankle, and it must be him screaming then, because it feels like his throat is being ripped apart. He's dragged backwards, and his fingers dig into the mud, dirt and decaying plant bits burying themselves deep under his nails, but it does him no good.

He's turned over onto his back, and he can see a man at the edge of his vision, and knows, somehow that he's Elias. He's holding one of Jon's books, open so wide that the spine warps and cracks.

"Jon?"

Tim's mask lies discarded on the ground halfway between them, bloodstained. Jon stretches out a hand towards it, but he can't reach. Can't even get his fingertips to graze the material.

" _Jon_!"

There's a hand at Jon's shoulder. He cringes away from it. It's not rough yet, but it will be. He wonders if they're going to beat him to death, or just shoot him with Tim's gun and let that be an end to him.

The hand prods, hard, and Jon opens his eyes.

Tim is crouched beside him, his hand still on Jon's shoulder, a warm, comforting weight. There is no one standing past him, no confusion of bodies. His mask is still down around his neck.

"Did your ankle get worse?" Tim asks, his eyes dropping towards the offending limb, like it's going to tell him.

"No, no, I'm fine," Jon tries to say, but the words seem to get tangled on their way out of his mouth. "I'm fine," he repeats, and this time, it sounds a little stronger, though it's still not convincing. "Just a dream."

"Oh." Tim sits back a little further. The glow of the firelight seeps through around him, and Jon can pick out more of the detail in his face. It's unusually drawn, worry around his eyes, and Jon wants to look away, pretend he'd never seen it. "Do you have them often? You were calling out. I thought something was wrong."

Jon wants to snap that something _is_ wrong, _everything_ is wrong, feels the shape of it in his mouth.

"Not often," he says, instead, though there's still too much bite in it. "But given the circumstances, I think I'm entitled."

"I'd say so," Tim says. He shuffles around, settling a little closer to Jon, and for a moment Jon is sure that he's going to try and put an arm around him, his mind stalling on whether or not he should move preemptively away, if he wants to. But Tim doesn't come any nearer, he just sits there, and looks at Jon like he means something, and there's nothing Jon can do to get away from that. "Is there anything I can do to help? We both need our rest."

"Don't die," Jon says, without meaning to. Wishes that he hadn't, an abrupt rush of heat spreading through his skin.

"Your bad dream was about me dying?" There's a sort of bright incredulity to Tim's voice.

"Don't let it go to your head," Jon growls, his arms tightening across his chest. "They were going to kill me too."

Tim makes a vague noise of assent, and doesn't pursue it.

"You should go back to sleep," he says. "We might need to go further. I haven't seen any more sign of Elias' people - they're probably still checking closer to the road and the towns - but we can't take any risks."

Jon nods, but he doesn't let his head fall back again. Sleep's not option for him for at least another few hours. The dream's probably still waiting for him, lurking in the folds of his eyelids.

Tim moves again, until he's leaning back against Jon's tree, their arms pressed together. His coat is still warm from facing the fire.

"Flesh and blood," he says, holding out his hand so that Jon can see it, flexing the fingers.

"I see," Jon says, ignoring the part of his brain suggesting that he should thank him. It was an embarrassment before, and it's an embarrassment now. He wants to snap out that he doesn't need to be reassured like a child, but he can't, because Tim is only trying to help, because he can't take his eyes away from the flickering shadows that the campfire sets dancing over Tim's skin, because it _is_ helping.

"It won't always be like this," Tim says. "As soon as it's safe to travel out of the woods, I'll get you far away from here. Somewhere where they've never even heard of Elias Bouchard. You'll be safe there."

Jon doesn't hear the rest of what Tim has to say. It's just a promise that he can't really have any hope of keeping, but he seems to need to make it anyway. Gives it away as wildly and with as little thought as the young give away kisses, just to help. And Jon, still rattled, can't find it in himself to tell him that he can't picture the future he's talking about.


End file.
